American Refugees

The frontispiece to America a Prophecy by William Blake, c. 1793

America is a country of refugees. It's people fancy themselves freedom fighters, but we are all descendants of people who chose to run instead of fight. We're told that there's a culture war going on. But how can that be, when we never had any heritage to begin with?

In the last century or two, our culture has successfully drowned out all the others. Around the world, once rich traditions have become shells of their former selves. Most people attribute this to various boogeymen, like capitalism and the neo-liberal order. Technocracy provides such immense comfort that tribal ties are meaningless. They say there is no alternative, so you might as well play along: our only virtue is Progress.

But I don't buy that. Somewhere along the way people stopped believing in tradition, or at least allowed themselves to forget enough to make space for change. Whether it be mismanagement of the church or the excessive regulation by the state, people began to turn away from each other when faced with their own cultural struggles. Instead, they put their faith in the vagaries of freedom and the wild idea of a better tomorrow.

One of my favorite reads is Stefan Zweig's World of Yesterday, which chronicles the rich cultural world of Europe leading up to the first world war, and then the demise of it in the interwar years. Zweig was among the time's most renowned writers, and is one of the biggest fans of the European project. Still, during the second world war, he fled the place he loved so much, knowing he was unlikely to return.

Casablanca is one of my favorite films (cliche, I know). It only just occured to me that the people coming through Rick's Cafe are just like Zweig. They the enjoyed decades of decadence that their heritage enabled. But when faced with the slightest of conflicts, they ran for safety instead of fighting for their people. I'm sure some people thought the war would blow over and they'd return. I doubt many did.

But Casablanca is a great story because it is about resistance. The protagonists may have allowed the demise of their culture, but faced with tyranny, they chose to fight back. Rick presents a facade of neutrality, but from the beginning of the film we see his belief in good over evil. Even the chief of police in the city, as cooperative as he was with evil, made the conscious choice to side with good.

Ultimately, it was the Americans who came in to clean up the mess during the war. Yet it wasn't the culture they were fighting for. It wasn't even about freedom (none of our wars ever are). No, the technocracy must always put down rising factions. That is why things are tense with China, but we are content to merely provide aid to Ukraine's war against Russia. Xi wants to become the next chief technocrat while Vlad (for better or worse) merely wants to restore his ancestral tradition.

Of course, history never repeats itself. If America falls off the throne, it will not be from war but from atrophy. Like our ancestors, we will cease to believe in our beloved virtues. Progress may not have been a good foundational value, but it got us pretty far nonetheless. It brought us tremendous wealth and a brief period of cultural greatness (post-war to the 70s), followed by an extraordinarily decadent period where people benefitted from the culture without reinforcing it themselves.

In that respect, we look a lot like the Europe of a century ago. But this time, it is our people who suffer the loss, and I fear we have no place to retreat. There is no New America to find refuge. The irony is that there is no enemy: neither foreign nor domestic.

Nobody poses a real threat to conservative culture, and the conservatives are frankly too lazy to do anything but bitch about liberal culture. In reality, I don't think either side has a culture that's worth a damn anyhow. They are whining about stuck culture when we barely had any culture to begin with. All we know is that we love the freedom. We don't even know why we love it, because even though we have the rights we don't use them. I guess it's just in the water.

So, who's with me? It's time we stop acting like refugees and build a place worth a damn or two.